Duckudrama

Every morning when I sit up in bed, the first thing I see is our lake. When we decided to put a master suite in the basement of this cabin, I knew just where I wanted our bed. I could envision waking up just like I did this day. It's beautiful, really. Especially now as it gets a litttle greener out by the minute. But what really gets me going, besides my morning cafe, are the waterfowl.

I grew up near the Mississippi river and the only ducks I knew of really were the mallards. Pretty green heads on the males, drakes, made them easy to remember. There were lots of Canadian geese around the fields where I lived as kid too. I really had no idea there were so many different types of ducks around, either passing through on their migrations or staying a bit longer to nest and then move on.

I can proudly tell the difference now between the shovelers, wood ducks, blue-winged teals, merganzers and greebs. Remember the story about how I like to learn about one subject very thoroughly? I want to learn more about the ducks. Lucky girl that I am, my very own crocodile-hunter husband also knows all about the birds and answers my copious questions on the subject. First of all, they are cute. They swim super fast too! In their cute little pairs or harems, it's charming, really, or so I thought.

Apparently there is a more cut-throat side to these cute little critters. This morning as I was making coffee, I saw a few blue-winged teals on the lake out the window. The sides of the house have what we call the "dog-legs" of the lake. You can see it a little bit in the photo. It's narrow and shallow and the birds love to hang out here when there is no threat to be found, like me trying to take their picture! So the drake, who had his own hen, goes after this outsider drake and they fight! On the water! Dang! The invader was chased away and the winner now had three hens following him around! I watched as the winner chased the other drake around just to make sure he didn't try any funny stuff. The three hens tailed their boss like stink on doo-doo.

It's obviously time to nest for these birdies. I hope they stay here and we have wee teals and merganzers about. I know the nesting pair of Canadian geese are staying, but as yet I cannot determine where they are nesting exactly. The kingfisher is back too, he's a neat one to watch. So is the snowy egret, who is thus far alone, but had a partner last year, hmmm, I wonder what happened there. They eat the minnows and the frogs in the lake. The blue heron is always cool to see land so close to the house an hang out for awhile. I love to wake up early and see what new episode Mother Nature has for me. It's better than the Kennedy mini-series, my very own duck-u-drama.